The present invention relates to a floor covering for the protection and comfort of animals, such as beef animals and dairy animals, in an animal house and more particularly to improvements in and relating to mats for concrete floors or concrete slats of slatted houses, for standing areas in animal houses, around feed and water stations, and the bases of cubicle entrances.
It is known to place a mat comprising a rubber strip onto the concrete slats in slatted houses used for housing cattle. The known mat is secured on the concrete slat by either tying the mat on the slat using a wrap around band or by directly screwing the mat into the concrete slat. Securing the mat using the band has not proved to be successful primarily because the band can become damaged. Furthermore the mat is not fully secured to the slat and the mat is likely to come loose and become slideable relative to the slat.
The disadvantage of screwing this type of mat into a concrete slat is that the exposed screws can pose a hazard either when an animal kneels directly onto the screws resulting in injury to the animal or if and when the screw rusts, again posing a danger to the animal. A more recent attempt of overcoming the problem involves the use of rubber strips attached by means of a bung or clip. For this system to function properly, the concrete flooring would need to be completely uniform which does not happen in practice.
The mixture of manure, urine and silage effluent that flows into a slurry tank beneath an animal house produces hazardous gases which continually disperse up through the gaps in the concrete slats and circulate around the slatted house. These gases are detrimental to the welfare of the animals that are housed under these conditions and to the farm workers who take case of the animals on a daily basis.
None of these prior art systems address the comfort and protection of the animal or assist in dealing with hazardous gases. In order to improve the protection and comfort of animals on concrete and concrete slatted floors while maintaining the proven features of such floors, a floor covering which provides a more beneficial animal floor surface was proposed by the inventor of the present invention in Irish Short-Term Patent Application No. S990443 and International Patent Application No. PCT/IE99/00098. The floor covering disclosed in these applications comprises elongated strips of elastomeric material engageable in separate housings fitted to each separate slat.
However, a number of problems subsist in the technical solutions in Irish Short-Term Patent Application No. S990443 and International Patent Application No. PCT/IE99/00098. The elongated strips of elastomeric material are difficult to secure to the housings and their installation is labour intensive.